Not on speaking terms

I am at a thing. I have been asked to read a couple of poems. It is not my thing,…

Go, little poem

I have said goodbye to the poem. For a while, a long while, we were not even speaking. After the…

The poem is not happy. It glares up at me, its eyes spitting fury. ‘How dare you take me in…

I am being pursued by the poem. It has been there for several years now, asking to be written. I…

You stick to the routines you have set up, notebook observations, voracious reading, sending the work out to mags, even…

The impetus behind this blog is praise. I hope it comes across. I made a vow that I would use…

Having not succeeded at school, I’ve always thought of poetry as the holidays, rather than term-time. Hugo Williams I went…

In the Desert Knowing Nothing Here I am in the desert knowing nothing, here I am knowing nothing in…

You’re at a reading, to support a friend. It is not going well. Not your friend, who is quietly stealing…

The Little Snoring Poetry Group have written to you asking if you would come and read to them some of…

You go a talk by a Leading Poet. No one you know is there, but still you sit at the…

Dear Anthony Two cycles down, just six more to go. You are not looking bad, considering. The belligerent doctor who…

I listened to the most wonderful radio programme about failure the other day. It featured Anne Enright talking with clear-eyed…

Lately I have been pondering the practice of paying attention, vis-à-vis my habit of keeping a notebook to capture impressions,…

Readers of this blog will know I have been thinking a lot about stationery recently. (Actually, that is something of…

My blog post yesterday about the stationery thing provoked more responses than I ever imagined it would. Among the…

At the start of each academic year, usually when I have known them for a week or so, I make…

I was very saddened to learn recently of the death of Michael Baldwin, the novelist, poet, writing tutor and former…